Things are going to be fine.  This is what I tell myself.  Yesterday I gave in and called my primary care doctor.  I was able to get in and see the nurse.  She looked at my ear, exclaimed “Your eardrum looks like jelly!” and said that she thought I had hemotympanum (blood in the middle ear), a condition that is often seen following blunt force trauma (e.g. skull fractures), and apparently in my case, following a ruptured eardrum.  She made arrangements for me to see the ENT specialist at the hospital and sent me on my way.  When I checked into otolaryngology, they gave me a hearing test which was not great in either ear, but was definitely worse in my left.  They gave me a tympanogram to measure the fluid in my ear (it’s an indirect measure, because what they are actually measuring is the amount that the eardrum moves).  My right ear was somewhat normal and my left ear was dead in the water.  During the bone conduction test, they found I could hear better when they presented auditory stimuli to the bone behind my ear compared with when they presented it directly into my ear.  The doctor looked in my ear and exclaimed surprise and stifled irritation that the urgent care provider did not see (or treat) the very obvious infection in my left ear.  He gave me a prescription for a stronger antibiotic than what I was on last month, and told me that my hearing would take weeks-months to come back after going untreated for over a week.  I still have tinnitus in my left ear, and I am wondering how my teaching is going to go next month when I will be delivering lectures in a large lecture hall that has the worst acoustics known to man.  All of that said, I have only taken 2 doses of the antibiotic and my sore throat is GONE.  For the first time in 2 weeks, I can swallow without pain.  So I do think that things will get better for sure—it’s just a matter of continuing to take pain meds and trying not to work too hard.

What’s this about not working too hard??  I have to work this weekend since I took 2 days off work last week right after all of this happened.  I am in the middle of an experiment and quitting now would mean losing a couple weeks worth of work, plus research $$$ that have already been invested in the experiment.  The undergrads are gone for the break and therefore can’t help.  So, I must trudge through on my own.  I am trying to tie up loose ends that I wanted wrapped up before the New Year, but progress is slow because I am not feeling well.  All in all, I feel irritated about work—I am irritated that it’s not getting done at the pace that I want, and I am irritated that I have to deal with it at all.  I wish I could just call in sick without consequence (and get paid for a sick day!)  A girl can dream….

I don’t know whether it’s the sickness talking or the lack of benefits at my job, but I am starting to have very serious thoughts (part 2,749,320) of leaving my field.  I can’t afford to make any impulsive moves just yet, but I will say that I am investigating my options.  Starting in January, I will be getting some clinical experience that is related to the basic research I am doing in the lab.  I don’t know whether a move to doing human subjects research is something I necessarily want to do, but at least I can get some “free” exposure to this area of research that won’t require me to step away from the projects in which I am already involved.  I don’t have a degree in clinical psychology (nor do I want one), but I could still do human subjects research with the training I have (with additional mentoring required).  In an ideal world, I would be a trained clinical neuropsychologist with the ability to practice in a hospital.  But, I don’t have the clinical training, and it’s not offered where we live anyway.  So that option is most likely out.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is this:  We live in a semi-rural area with no serious prospects for me to continue the line of work in which I am currently engaged.  My current position is temporary, I am underpaid for my education, and I have no benefits.  When my position is up, I will be able to find something better (maybe) but it would require an out of state move.  We are not interested in living in the midwest, or the mid-Atlantic, or California.  We are happy where we are.  But staying here comes with a price.  I have to either do something new that is related to my field, or I have to leave the field completely.  I don’t see the latter as a real option.  I am going to try to adapt my skills to local conditions as best I can, but I think it’s going to be a real uphill battle.  I’m keeping my options open across the university, in the hope that *something* will become an opportunity for me.

Again, I don’t know if it’s just the sickness talking—if the feeling of being under the weather and drowning in work is making me feel like I need to run for the hills—or if I need to contemplate a career change more seriously because my life is demanding it.

This is a heavy post.  I promise something light for next time—after all, I WILL be feeling better in just a couple days here.  And there will be good times to share with my little guy.

I am not attempting the following this holiday season:

1.  Sending Christmas cards (or any holiday-themed card for that matter)

2.  Getting a family photo taken

3.  Cleaning the house

4.  Painting

5.  Baking holiday cookies

6.  Making Christmas dinner

“Ba-humbug!” you say.  “Someone is clearly not in the holiday spirit.”  However, this isn’t exactly true.  I had looked forward to celebrating Christmas with H this year, as it’s really the first Christmas that counts for him.  Last year he was only 6 months old, and couldn’t really tear into those presents of his with the level of enthusiasm I suspect he’ll have this year.  In my mind over the past few months, I had idyllic visions of making misshapen gingerbread men with Holden, some with ill-fitting limbs, some with lumpy innards.  The unluckiest among them would be headless— victims of Holden’s personal Reign of Terror.  I wanted to paint with him, eat good food, go on little day trips on the weekends.  I wanted to spend a lot of time playing with Holden and re-acquainting myself with the little person he is becoming.

What frustrates me is how I can’t do any of this because I have been so sick.  And I don’t mean to be so negative or complain so much—but I am beginning to think something is really wrong.  Last year I struggled a good deal with sinus infections.  I had never had one before, so it was a little weird that I kept getting them.  This year, I have had some kind of sickness going on intermittently since October.  I had a sinus infection.  I took amoxcillin—it seemed to clear up, for a time.  About a week after I finished my meds, I started feeling sick again.  Not horrible and certainly not anything worth seeing a doctor over.  I just would feel achy and tired and I would get sinus congestion.  Then I would have more major congestion.  Then it would go away.  Then it would come back again.  It’s been back and forth like this for a couple of months.  This past week has been the worst of it.  On Wednesday, I was at work, sort of dragging through my day because I was feeling tired and achey all over again.  By 4PM, my left ear started hurting.  By the time I got home, I could hear fluid sloshing around in my ear and I really started to have some pain.  I decided to go to urgent care in case it was an ear infection (safe assumption, I thought), so that I wouldn’t have to deal with pain all night long and then have to deal with getting to a doctor the next day and trying to find transportation, etc.  So I go to urgent care.  I explain my symptoms to 3 different people.  They all ask the same questions.  I get told that my ear isn’t the problem—my throat is so swollen that it’s putting pressure on my eustachian tubes and causing fluid to build up behind my eardrum.  As this is being explained to me (that my ear isn’t the problem), I am in agony and I start having fluid come out of my ear.  Oh yeah, they tell me, that’s normal.  Ok.  They tell me I just have a virus, I need to go home and rest.  I go home.  More agony, more fluid coming out of my ear.  Eventually, the ear pain abates, but I continue to have the worst sore throat of my entire life and neck pain like I’ve never experienced.  Over the next couple of days, I stay home from work, and I have trouble swallowing even water, because my throat is so swollen.  Now I have ringing in my ears ALL THE TIME, and it’s to the point where I can’t hear anything above the din.  I can’t breathe out of my nose.  I try to to do the neti pot but no water will flow.  The Tylenol is barely cutting the pain.  I am frustrated beyond anything I can really express.  I ended up missing Rob’s holiday party at work (an event that we both looked forward to very much, complete with real actual babysitter).  Sigh.  Why do I keep getting sinus infections and having all of this clogged shit going on in my head?  I can’t go back to my primary care because he won’t prescribe anything if I’m sick for less than 2 weeks.  I understand, but maybe I don’t need a prescription.  Maybe I need someone to help me figure out why this continues to be such a problem for me, when it hasn’t been before.  I just don’t think the ruptured eardrum and the tinnitus, and the inability to swallow water are normal.

When Rob picked Holden up from daycare yesterday, he was informed that Holden had a mini temper tantrum in which he repeatedly asked for me.  This made me feel horrible, because I haven’t been able to be around him.  I have been in bed for the past several days.  I haven’t been eating dinner with the family and I’m in bed before Holden gets tucked in.  So I think he really misses me.  Today I tried to make up for it.  I spent lots of time with H today, but I think I’m pretty beat now because of it.  I miss him terribly and just want to have a couple of normal days where we can veg out.  This doesn’t count the massive amount of work I have piling up for me at work (I feel sick just thinking about the course prep alone), and the housework—-egads, the housework.  The unrelenting, never-ending housework.  I just can’t even think about it.  Oh, and the fact that I DON’T GET PAID SICK LEAVE.  This has me pretty irritated as well, because we continue to pay for daycare yet I’m not making any money on days when my ears are draining fluid and ringing along at a high pitch.  This aspect of my job makes me resent my work and sometimes I just hate it and want to threaten to quit (or actually quit) and do something better.

OK, enough venting for now.  If I were feeling better, I think I’d be pretty happy with my life and I wouldn’t have anything to complain about.  But illness can cast a shadow over everything.  I hope I can get over this soon so I can spend time with my boy, stay on top of my work, and not feel like my life is passing me by, unappreciated.